Which summer job should I choose?

Where should I intern this summer?

• So I applied to two internships this summer, one local and one in a different country and got offered both positions and do not know which one to choose. The first one is an internship computer security programming job at FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), and the office in which I would be working at is located less than 5 minutes away from my house driving, so there is virtually no commute. Also the pay is $20/hr which is amazing for an internship. It is a 12 week program. So I would make about $8400. I live in Maryland, USA. The second internship is this program I applied for called the TAIWAN TECH TREK. I honestly thought I would not get this internship because of high competition. Basically this program consist of 191 internships jobs in many different cities in Taiwan in all different subjects. I applied for 3 of the 191 positions because they were related to computer science which is my major and each of those 3 jobs I applied to had only 1 spot open for it with over 30 students applying to each job. So I was very surprised to find out I got one of the internships. There are 191 other college students out of the thousands that applied doing this program this year coming from Universities and colleges all across the USA. I will get to meet them all at a 6 day orientation in TAIPEI, TAIWAN. After the orientation, we all disseminate to our respective cities and internships for 7 weeks. I will be working at an engineering research lab in HSINCHU, TAIWAN which is the silicon valley of TAIWAN! That is the main reason I want to go. The thing is I will only be compensated for Travel and I will not get paid at all. So basically this is an unpaid internship. So I have a dilemma, should I do the FINRA internship which is 5 min away from my house and get paid $8400 for the summer? or should I go to TAIWAN, meet 200 other students from all different Universities, work at the Hsinchu city, the silicon valley of TAIWAN, explore a new city and new country that I have never been to before, but only get compensated for travel and not make any money at all? It's the experience of working in a different country vs $8400.

• Answer:

  Go for the experience . it is a once in a lifetime opportuninty./